Running an Online Channel

This page is for whoever runs GadgetSphere’s online shops day to day: the listings, the stock the shops show, the orders that must leave on time, the returns and disputes, and the scorecard each platform keeps on you. BigLedger brings the orders in, pushes your prices out, and sends a stock figure to your Lazada and Shopee shops. Most of this job happens somewhere else: in the platform’s seller centre, in the packing area, and in decisions nobody has written down. For each part of the job, this page says what BigLedger does and who does the rest, when they do it, and how they know it is right.

The mechanics are on the E-Commerce module pages, above all Core Concepts and Best Practices. The money side has its own page: Reconciling Marketplace Payouts.

The job runs across four pages. Step 1 is on this one:

Decide what each listing promises, and keep it true.
Choose how much stock each shop may show, and size the buffer from the arithmetic: Size each online shop’s stock buffer.
Steps 3 to 6, after the order arrives: ship by the platform’s date, handle cancellations and returns, answer disputes and chargebacks and keep the scorecard healthy: Ship, cancel, return and dispute.
Steps 7 to 9: decide what the buyer’s personal data is for, notice when a feed stops and judge whether a channel pays: Buyer data, silent feeds and channel profit.

Meet GadgetSphere Online

GadgetSphere Online Sdn Bhd (GSO) is the group’s e-commerce arm. It runs its own storefront and sells on four marketplaces, and each marketplace shop is a marketplace branch in BigLedger. All of them sell from the same fulfilment-centre stock. On a normal day the shops together sell about 30 flagship smartphones. On a platform sale day they sell ten times that, most of it in the first two hours.

Before you start

Each marketplace shop is set up as a marketplace branch, with its orders arriving (E-Commerce configuration).
You can sign in to each platform’s seller centre, and to your payment gateway’s merchant portal if you run your own storefront. Most of this job is done there.
You know who in the business packs, who raises credit notes, and who owns personal-data compliance. Several steps hand work to one of them.

What BigLedger does and what stays with you

Part of the job	What BigLedger does	Who does the rest
The listing	Holds the item, pushes its details and price to each shop	The channel manager keeps the listing true to what ships
Stock shown on each shop	Computes a figure per shop from the stock balance and the buffer, and sends it to Lazada and Shopee shops only. Nothing it computes is sent to a TikTok Shop or Shopify shop	The channel manager chooses the buffer and resizes it before a campaign. On TikTok Shop and Shopify, the channel manager keeps the stock figure in the seller centre by hand (Step 2)
The ship-by date	Stores Shopee’s date on the order; no screen shows it	The packing lead works from the seller centre’s to-ship list
Cancellations	Shopee and Lazada: at most records the channel’s status on the order. TikTok Shop: also voids the sales order	The channel manager accepts or rejects; the stock keeper checks nothing was issued
Returns and refunds	Nothing arrives except a status	The stock keeper receives the goods; the accounts clerk raises the credit note
Disputes and chargebacks	Nothing	The channel manager (marketplace) or the storefront owner (card) responds with evidence
Reviews and buyer messages	Pulls reviews and sends your replies (Shopee, Lazada); syncs Shopee conversations	A person writes every reply
Platform scorecard	Nothing	The channel manager reads it weekly in the seller centre
The buyer’s personal data	Writes name, phone and address to the order. Shopee and Lazada: also to a customer record, unless you chose one customer per shop. TikTok Shop: always to a customer record per buyer	The data owner decides what that record may be used for

Step 1: Decide what each listing promises, and keep it true

A listing is a public promise. The title, the images, the specification, the variant and the price must each match the unit you will actually ship. BigLedger does not check any of this against the item.

What makes each one defensible is the same test: could you hold up a unit from the shelf beside it?

Title: names the model and variant you stock, and nothing you do not. No “compatible with” for a model nobody has tested.
Images: taken from, or checked against, a unit you hold. A maker’s photo of a newer revision is a mismatch.
Specification: from the maker’s sheet for the model number on the box, not the previous model’s.
Variants: each colour or capacity on the listing is linked to the item you would actually pick for it.
Price: the one in the scheme you meant to use (below).

Which of the five the platform punishes, and how. A wrong title, image, specification or variant comes back as a “not as described” return or dispute. The platform decides it on the listing as published, which is exactly the evidence against you, and it counts toward the return and dispute figures on your scorecard (Step 6). Price is policed separately, by the platform’s own pricing rules.

The caution that is not on the screen: when you link an item to a shop, the listing takes its own copy of the main image and the dimensions. Change the item afterwards and the shop does not change (EcomSync setup, step 6). Suppose a supplier substitutes a charger model, or a colour is discontinued. The item record in BigLedger can be right while the live listing is still wrong.

Who: the channel manager, whenever purchasing reports a substitution or a specification change. Once a month, check your top-selling listings against the goods on the shelf.
How you know it is right: for the twenty listings that sell most, the shop’s title, main image and specification match a unit taken from the shelf. After any substitution, re-link the item or edit the listing, then look at the shop.

Price per channel is a decision BigLedger will carry out, and it will not make it for you. Each marketplace branch has its own Default Pricing scheme. When you change it, every price in the new scheme is queued to the shop straight away.

Charging more on a marketplace, to cover its commission, is a normal choice. It becomes hard to defend if your own storefront undercuts the marketplace in a way the platform’s price rules forbid. That is a commercial decision for the channel manager and finance, made before anyone changes the scheme, and never during a live campaign. You know it is right when the price on each shop matches the scheme you meant to use, and the seller centre shows no price-rule warning.

Steps 2 to 9, in brief

Step 2: Choose how much stock each shop may show, and size the buffer from the arithmetic

The four ways to share one pool of stock, which orders lower each shop’s figure, how to size the buffer and how to read what open orders are holding back are on Size each online shop’s stock buffer.

Step 3: Ship by the platform’s date, not yours

The packing lead works from the seller centre’s to ship list, because no BigLedger screen shows the ship-by date (Step 3).

Step 4: Handle cancellations and returns: the platform decides, you correct the books

Cancellations differ by marketplace, and a return arrives as a status only: the stock keeper receives the goods and the accounts clerk raises the credit note (Step 4).

Step 5: Answer disputes and chargebacks with evidence you kept before you needed it

On a marketplace your defence is evidence collected at packing time; on your own storefront a card chargeback is yours to answer (Step 5).

Step 6: Keep the platform’s scorecard healthy, because BigLedger cannot see it

The channel manager reads it in the seller centre, weekly, and daily during a campaign (Step 6).

Step 7: Decide what the buyer’s personal data is for, before the first order arrives

On Shopee, Lazada and a Shopify shop, which customer an order is billed to is a setting on the marketplace branch that is easy to miss; TikTok Shop always creates a customer per buyer (Step 7).

Step 8: Notice when a feed stops, because nothing will tell you

When a channel stops, BigLedger shows a quiet day. Name one person per shop to compare the order counts each morning (Step 8).

Step 9: Judge whether a channel pays, after its costs

Sales by branch are gross revenue and flatter a marketplace; compare contribution after channel costs (Step 9).

What success looks like

Run these in a few minutes at the end of a month:

Yesterday’s order count in each seller centre matches the orders on its marketplace branch.
The platform’s returned and refunded orders for the month each have a credit note in BigLedger.
The gateway’s chargebacks and refunds for the month each have a matching entry in BigLedger.
There were no oversold orders, and each shop’s buffer has been reviewed since the last campaign.
The late-shipment and cancellation rates on each scorecard are inside the platform’s thresholds.
For each shop, a written note says how buyers’ data is held, and who owns the scorecard, the morning count and the Request Refund mailbox.

Common mistakes

Each part of the job carries its own table, beside the steps it belongs to:

Stock buffer: treating the shop’s stock figure as a reservation, and a percentage buffer of 5 meant as “hold back 5 %”.
After the order: waiting for the platform’s refund before raising the credit note, and relying on the Request Refund widget to refund.
Data, feeds and profit: leaving Default Entity unticked without deciding to, expecting one customer on a TikTok shop, and comparing channels on gross sales.